one-eyed omniscience
by daughter-of-october
Summary: [Characters: Miles' wife, Miles, other Briggs-soldiers.] # Summary: She is not quite what they expect her to be.


**_one-eyed omniscience_**

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**Characters**: Miles' wife, Briggs-soldiers.

**Summary**: She is not quite what they expect her to be.

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She is the wife of a man who should have died, the wife of a man who should never have reached the position of a major. She is a woman who is an oddity in herself, someone who makes hardly any sense to someone who has never even seen her – and hardly anyone has ever made her acquaintance because her husband makes a point out of separating his personal life and his life up at Briggs. Even those who know more about him like his superior or the co-worker he spends most of his time with have never seen more than a faded photography of the woman who is Major Miles's wife, of the woman who has not even a name.

Therefore, she is a mystery for most people and the rumours about her are getting more and more ridiculous. Some say that she does not exist, that the major invented her because he had felt bothered by too many female soldiers along the years who had tried to flirt with him. Others claim that she is part of the army, maybe even a state alchemist – because this would be the most ironic partner for a man who had lost family in the Ishbalan Civil War.

A few people say that they have seen the major in NorthCity on his day of, strolling around with some pretty blond woman, someone tall and agile. But this seems not fitting for the major because everyone knows that he is not one to care for outer appearances.

No one ever asks the major himself after his wife and so he listens to the assumptions and reports the weirdest ones to his wife who exists, thank you very much, and they laugh together.

It is the Major General who finally loses her patience. She, too, had made her assumptions about the wife of her closest co-worker and she wonders what kind of woman never feels threatened by her existence. Other men, men who hardly ever spoke to her, have gotten angry phone calls from their wives about her and that the only woman who might have reasons to feel jealous never bothered saying anything struck her as very, very strange.

And so she has invited Major Miles' wife to Briggs – to have tea with her because somewhere along her musings, Olivier Armstrong has come to the conclusion that Major Miles' wife was most likely the homely type, maybe a little bit prudish and probably too scared of losing him to ever even consider the possibility that he might be cheating on her. While such a woman would be boring and probably make a fool out of herself, her visit would make the soldiers stop musing about her identity and this was all she wanted at the moment.

"…you invited my … my wife?" Miles asks, confused and for a moment, his voice seems to break.

"Yes," his superior replies, reading another file. "I thought that it might be nice. I mean, you have been working here for three years running and I have never met her."

"You never invited anyone else's wife," he points out. "Why is mine any different?"

"You act as if you don't want her to come for a visit…" she says with a sly smirk. "Trouble?"

He shakes his head. "Just a little heads-up, madam, she might not be the kind of person you expect," he warns and then he is gone, probably carrying another bunch of files to Buccaneer.

She muses what he might have meant when one of the soldiers reports the arrival of the wife in question and when the other woman enters, she realises that the major had meant. This woman was not the homely or prudish type. This woman was a self-confident woman of great intellect.

"Major General Armstrong, I presume," she says as she approaches the smaller woman. "My name is Nerissa Hamilton Miles. I believe that you invited me for tea?"

There is an eye patch covering her left eye and an air of superiority surrounds her.

"Yes," the general says as she mentions towards the table. "Please, have a seat. Did you have a pleasant journey? Your husband didn't tell me where you came from…"

"Oh, I just returned from a trip to Xing," the woman replies, toying with a ribbon of colour beads on her bag. "And I usually live in NorthCity when I am not on another journey so my trip to the fortress was quite comfortable and pretty easy."

"Xing?" the general asks in slight confusion.

"Yes, I travel nearly the entire year save for the times Lawrence has his weeks off because it would make no sense for me to be in Creta when he is on a vacation," she explains with a cheerful smile. "Plus, I like travelling, have been doing it for quite a few years now…"

"Isn't your family against it?"

"My father doesn't care as long as I start no war and my mother is dead," the guest says with a serene smile. "Plus, I met Lawrence when I was travelling through the Western Area."

"You seem to be a very unusual woman … travelling, not caring about so many things…"

"I was sixteen when I nearly lost my eye," she replies, patting her eye patch. "That changes your attitude and your way to deal with many things considerably."

"So, the eye is still here?" the major general inquires, suddenly feeling interested because no one lost an eye when dancing ballet – or at least she had not heard of such a thing yet.

"Oh yes," the visitor smiles as she traces patterns onto her eye patch. "It also functions perfectly fine but I got a pretty nasty scar and my sisters advised me to keep it covered in public because of the stares I got. It's … I am kinda disfigured."

"This is … unfortunate, I guess. Especially since you have probably problems with the depth perception now, right?" the commander asks, a frown etched onto her face. "And medical or organic alchemists could really do nothing to make the scar disappear? Pathetic."

"It's a reminder and this way I learned that speaking out of line is one hell of a bad idea," she replies with a shrug. "My sister offered to erase the scar many times but this is my eye and I don't want to take another risk. Then again, I knew about my mother's mental instability before she turned against me so maybe, I am not entirely innocent."

For the Major General, it makes sense all of a sudden. Miles has always been someone who enjoyed to heal whatever he could fix and to mend the broken. A woman lacking sight on one eye and possessing a broken and ragged yet undeniable strong spirit is someone made for the major. And this woman is another mixture of everything Miles needed and also, everything the general has disliked in other people – there is the certain assertiveness, this ambition to win even though the general had yet to figure what exactly and the bright fire within the blue orbs.

After the visit, the soldiers look up to the major with more respect than they ever did before because to them, his wife is one scary lady, nearly outmatching their superior and this means something.

Major Miles, however, chuckles because he knows of his wife's respect for his commander and so he speaks no further of the visit. He wonders whether the ice queen has been able to recognise her equal in the mystery that was Nerissa, whether she has been able to see behind the masks and veils his wife wears ever so proudly because she has learned a long time ago that being predictable and understood was the first step of being defeated.

He also knows that he is still the only one in the fortress who has understood her completely, the only one to unravel the mystery – because he has had the time. He has been investigating the mystery that happened to be his wife for years, ever since he has met her on that sunny day in the western area where she had done her alchemy training.

To him, she is the one who sees everything as it is, one-eyed omniscience.


End file.
